Nostalgia & History > WAG Wednesday: FM memories in Chicago

Here are a couple of nostalgic scenes of a passenger train orientation from the Windy City. Although taken 10 years apart, there is some Fairbanks-Morse nostalgia here in both shots. Enough to warm the heart of any Santa Fe passenger fan. Bill didn’t provide much extra information on his 2 slides other than date & location. These scenes may have been utterly commonplace when he took them decades years ago. (And image #2 was actually taken during Amtrak’s early days.)

But my goodness, it still looks ‘Santa Fe all the way’! And just listen to that FM chug…

1. Zebra-striped AT&SF 541 in (passenger) switching service on June 16, 1962.

2. Blue & yellow 543 is shoving Amtrak train #15 into Union Station on September 23, 1972. The lead unit-314L was later rebuilt into CF-7 2508.
(2 photos by William A. Gibson [Bill] Sr. in Chicago, IL)

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels (santafe199)
Art Gibson (wag216)



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/22 22:54 by santafe199.

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"FM, no static at all." Hey Lance, I was very fortunate to get to see and photograph those FM's in service in the early 70's in Chicago. Some friends and I drove up from Memphis in April 1973 which was my first trip up there; I was the ripe old age of 16! While we were being chauffeured around Chicago by a good friend who lived there we listened to rock music on WDAI "FM" - another "FM" memory for me. Those call letters stuck with me because there was (and still is) a WDIA in Memphis.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/14 10:10 by Rathole.

Rathole Wrote:
> ...chauffeured around Chicago...listened to rock music on WDAI "FM."

You definitely have one on me there! I would turn 18 in June of '73, but wouldn't visit Chicago as a railfan for another 6 years. Got some 'stuff', though...

For the early 70's music radio scene all we could get in my hometown (Manhattan) was WHB (KC), WLS (Chicago) & KOMA (OK City) for standard AM radio. Talk about STATIC! FM top-40 was a year or so away yet. Oh yeah... for some real 'underground' stuff we could always pull in "Beaker Street" from KAAY in Little Rock! As Archie Bunker sang: "Those were the days..."

The "FM" Soundtrack entered Billboard's Top-200 Albums chart in May of 1978, reached a #5 position and rode a mere 12 weeks on that chart. I don't believe I ever saw the movie in its entirety but the music was GREAT: a hodge-podge of killer, mostly Top-40 tunes...

DJ Sir L

Picture 1 was taken on the east side of Dearborn St. Station by the "Annex".
Very nice. Thank you for posting!

Beauty

On the overnight drive up to Chicago, we listened to WLS AM 89 all the way - I've even got a CD of a bunch of WLS jingles. I remember there was a female DJ named Yyonne Daniels who did the overnights on WLS in that early-mid 70's era. I'll bet a lot of other railfans are WLS "veterans" too!


santafe199 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> You definitely have one on me there! I would turn
> 18 in June of '73, but wouldn't visit Chicago as a
> railfan for another 6 years. Got some 'stuff',
> though...
>
> For the early 70's music radio scene all we could
> get in my hometown (Manhattan) was WHB (KC), WLS
> (Chicago) & KOMA (OK City) for standard AM radio.
> Talk about STATIC! FM top-40 was a year or so away
> yet. Oh yeah... for some real 'underground' stuff
> we could always pull in "Beaker Street" from KAAY
> in Little Rock! As Archie Bunker sang: "Those were
> the days..."
>
> The "FM" Soundtrack entered Billboard's Top-200
> Albums chart in May of 1978, reached a #5 position
> and rode a mere 12 weeks on that chart. I don't
> believe I ever saw the movie in its entirety but
> the music was GREAT: a hodge-podge of killer,
> mostly Top-40 tunes...
>
> DJ Sir L

Hey Lance,
Us old farts did get to see the FM's in service and I too have a few shots of them. I also have a shot of the dead line as they were stored for trade in/ scrap. I have a silhouette shot of one of these switching in North Joliet. Part of growing up along the ATSF/GMO in my home town.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

Bob3985 Wrote:
> Hey Lance, Us old farts did get to see the FM's in service...

Nice! The only Santa Fe FMs I remember seeing were the 3000 class (H-16-44s) in my Grandma's home town of Abilene, KS (my beloved '2nd' hometown). They were pretty regular fare in Abilene in the 1960s, along the usual gazillion F's & GP-7s. Us cousins would occasionally get rides 'around the yard', so I may have even gotten a ride in one...

Lance



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/14 19:42 by santafe199.